Stiles & Lydia
by Fetch47
Summary: Stiles Stilinski knows he should be happy with Malia. That is just a fact. But, Stiles can't seem to let go of a fifteen year plan that he set in motion years ago. More importantly, he just can't seem to let go of his feelings for Lydia. Torn between his desire for Lydia and his wish not to hurt Malia, Stiles can't decide what he should do. And Stiles hates not having the answer.
1. Chapter 1

Stiles Stilinski lie awake, staring at the white ceiling of his bedroom. He thought about how ironic it would be if he decided to try and count sheep, with most all of his friends being werewolves or were-predators of similar prowess. Speaking of, he turned his eyes on the sleeping form to his left. Stiles listened to her breathing, it was steady, consistent, reliable even. Stiles had been so taken with her. Malia was a force, and at first Stiles was happy to be overwhelmed by her. He was a good teacher, and they had grown close through his helpful, and frequently necessary, lessons in human emotion. There was no reason for this not to work. Stiles squeezed his eyes shut and shakily let out a breath.

 _Why do you always do this to yourself?_ he asked himself. _You take the best thing you have going for you, and you just, you screw everything up._

Stiles opened his eyes and he thought to himself that he must be terrible guy. Why couldn't he be happy with Malia? She cared fiercely, she opened up to him, and she been his first real relationship. They had been each others' firsts for a lot of things. But, if Stiles fought through his guilt and accepted what he truly felt, he could accurately identify that Malia was not his first love. And if he was being brutally honest with himself, she wasn't the only one he loved now. And he hated himself for it. Regardless of how hard he tried, how much he committed to trying to make it work with Malia, he knew he had never given up on his now fifteen year plan.

Stiles reached the conclusion that his love for Lydia may never fade. If someone had asked him at the start of sophomore year who he thought the person he would be closest to was two years later, Lydia Martin would not have been the answer. If they had asked who he thought he would be most obsessed with, then sure, Lydia would have been his first thought. Stiles still periodically found himself in disbelief at their friendship. But, you can't love someone for that long and just expect it to go away. Especially not when everything about them is actually better in reality than you ever thought it would be. He was in love with her courage, her intelligence, and her ownership of both traits. Lydia was nothing like the vision he had been enamored with since the third grade; she was so much better, and he loved her for it.

Malia turned in her sleep, shifting so that now her head rest on his chest rather than her back being to him. And for some reason seeing her face made her suddenly more real to him, which led to a wave of shame that came crashing over. He feared that if he left her, she might break; she might run back to the woods and return to the animal nature that shielded her from her human pain. They had depended on each other through so much. They were a part of the same pack. For the hundredth time that night and the millionth time lately, Stiles simply couldn't stand himself. What if he wasn't the nice, funny guy that his friends all thought him to be? Stiles was stuck, unable to figure out the problem, unable to proceed from this point. He hated being stuck.

" _Stiles, you're the one who always figures it out,"_ Lydia had said to him. If only she knew that she had become his biggest mystery.

* * *

"Stiles?"

"Huh? What?" he mumbled as his head lifted from the pillow of his folded arms and the library table.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Lydia asked.

Stiles felt his heart beat jump when his eyes cleared and he realized who sat before him. He smiled nervously back and reached a hand around to rub the soreness from his stiff neck.

"No, I guess not really," he answered.

"Well, are you alright?" Lydia questioned, fixing her eyes on his and raising her eyebrows interrogatively.

"Yeah, yeah fine."

He could tell immediately that it was not fooling Lydia. Her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"Stiles," she said expectantly.

"It's nothing," Stiles said, breaking their locked gazed and focusing his attention on zipping his backpack and getting ready to leave. He stood up and slung his bag over his shoulder, and began to walk away.

"Hey, Stiles! What's going on with you?" Lydia demanded.

When she said this, she reached a hand out to grab his arm and turn him back around to face her. Her hand still rested on his bicep and Stiles felt warmth radiate from her palm. And he felt awful that he did. He felt awful that before he met her eyes, his own had lingered on her lips and thought about kissing her, when he shouldn't be. The darkest part of his mind felt hatred for himself in that moment because he could not even bring himself to regret his feelings for her. He had had them for too long, and they had become second nature. His love for her was always in the background of his mind, influencing his every action and decision. Stiles shrugged his arm away from her touch, flinching away from her as he was bombarded by thoughts of Malia, and how his own feelings for Lydia could hurt Malia if he stopped fighting them for even a second.

"Nothing. Really, everything is fine," he lied, walking away from her before he even finished the statement. Stiles rushed out of the library, out of the school, and did not stop until he was seated in his Jeep. Both of his hands gripped the wheel tightly and his forehead was pressed against it. His teeth were gritted. _If I keep this up, I'll ruin my relationship and lose one of the most important friendships I ever managed to secure._ In that moment Stiles felt desperately that he had to figure it out, and he needed to do it now. So he made a choice, and decided that it was time to give up the fifteen year plan, even though he felt his heart twist and all the breath rush out of him at the thought. He just couldn't risk hurting his pack anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N- No copyright infringement intended! All characters belong to MTV and the creators of Teen Wolf (Thank you, Jeff Davis!)

* * *

Stiles dragged his feet up the stairs of his house carrying his his heavy backpack and heavy heart. His head was pounding, probably due to the lack of sleep. Stopping outside his door with his hand on the knob, he could hear the sound of a pen being tapped repeatedly from inside his room. He turned the knob and opened the door, standing quietly in the entryway. Malia sat on his bed, legs folded and textbook in lap. She was vigorously tapping one of her many highlighters against a calculus textbook with a furrowed brow. Stiles felt his mouth quirk up into a grin in spite of himself.

"Hey," he greeted her quietly, standing frozen in the doorway.

"Hey!" Malia responded, closing the textbook and tossing it aside as if it was useless to her. Stiles thought she would agree it probably was. Still sitting in the center of his bed, she smiled at him.

"You look tired," she observed. "And you didn't sleep last night. I could feel you stirring for hours."

Stiles moved from the door and sat down on the edge of his bed with her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you up."

"What's wrong? You never make eye contact with me when something is wrong. And your pulse quickened when you sat down," she stated her observations.

"No, it's nothing. Just tired," he promised, leaning his elbows on his knees and placing his head in his hand to try and wipe the exhaustion from his eyes.

"Are you sure? It seems like more."

"I'm sure. I just haven't been able to turn my mind of long enough to sleep. There's a lot going on with the whole gang of evil doctors creating chimeras, murdering people, and all."

"Did you figure out something else? Something bad?" Malia questioned, fear creeping into her voice.

"No, no nothing else," Stiles reassured. _Nothing about the Dread Doctors at least._

"Well, if nothing is going on," she paused and turned to him with raised eyebrows to check that this was indeed the case, and he nodded his head in confirmation. "Then do you want to help me study?"

"Are you sure you want my help with calculus? You know you'd probably be better off asking-" his voice caught on her name. He swallowed and finished, "Lydia."

"You might be right. We could always not study," Malia said with a smirk, getting up from her spot in the center of the bed and settling in next to Stiles at the edge of the mattress. She reached a hand around and placed it on his cheek to turn his face to hers for a kiss. Stiles froze. His earlier decision came back to him, he was determined to make things work with Malia. Stiles wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned in to kiss her. He felt the corners of Malia's mouth curve up into a smile as he began to respond more enthusiastically to her advance. Slowly they lowered onto the bed so that Malia's back was flat against the comforter and Stiles was leaning over her, propped up mostly on his side.

He was trying. Stiles was trying to shut his mind off and just give in to the comfort and goodness of their physical connection. He prodded his brain and flooded his mind with memories of the amazing times he and Malia had shared. It began to work, and he closed his eyes, returning Malia's kiss. Their lips moved together and Stiles ran a hand up Malia's back. She arched her frame so that there was no space between them. He wound a hand in her chestnut hair, keeping her face secured to his. For a minute he felt better; then he remembered the gleam of strawberry blonde hair in the sun, and he sighed as he pulled away.

 _Giving up her up is going to be harder than I thought_ , he groaned internally.

* * *

Hours later, Stiles sat alone at a table in the library of the school once again. However, now he was very much awake. In front of him sat his photocopied packet of "The Dread Doctors" book. He stared at it, torn between wanting to read it and find out what they may have done with him and staying blissfully unaware of such knowledge. After a period of time long enough for him to bore holes through the paper with his fixated gaze, he exhaled shakily and picked it up.

"I mean how much worse could it really get?" he asked himself aloud with a hint of sarcasm.

Just as he flipped open the cover and started scanning the first page, he heard a crash. It was late and no one else should have been in the library but him or one of his friends. A minute ago he was sure he was alone, but evidently he was wrong. He found himself wishing he had grabbed that baseball bat he considered taking as he left the house. _Because that definitely would have made me unstoppable_ , he thought to himself sardonically.

Standing up, he shut his book and looked all around the room. Stiles couldn't see anyone, yet the hairs on the back of his neck still stood raised. He sat back down slowly, thinking that maybe a book somewhere had just fallen off of a shelf or something else similarly harmless.

Then he heard Lydia's piercing shriek echo off of every wall in the library and every corner of his mind. Stiles jumped up from his chair so quickly that the force of his movement knocked the piece of furniture over on the tiled ground. He took off running towards the row of bookshelves from where her cry had come. He was running so fast that he ran past her and had to grab the next bookshelf in order to bring himself to a halt so that he could turn around to reach her.

Lydia sat on her knees in the center of the non-fiction aisle. Books from the surrounding shelves were crashed down in piles, fanning out from where she sat in the midst of the chaos. With glazed eyes, she stared straight ahead, completely unaware of Stiles's presence. Tears streamed left tracks down her flushed cheeks. It seemed to Stiles that her whole body was shaking slightly.

"Lydia," Stiles murmured frantically, crouching in front of her. He waved a hand in front of her vacant face. Nothing.

"Lydia!" he said more loudly, reaching a hand out and placing it on her shoulder to give it a gentle shake.

It was like she had been burned by his touch. Lydia gasped violently and fell forward to her hands and knees, taking ragged breaths.

"Stiles?" she asked quietly, not looking up.

"Yeah, yeah Lydia it's me. Are you hurt?"

"No, no, no, no…" she mumbled in a panic.

"Lydia what's wrong? What is it? What did you see?" he asked her.

"Not you Sitles. Please anyone but you!" she exclaimed distraughtly.

"What's going on?" he begged, reaching a hand to gently rub her back in soothing circles.

"They said the person who found me would be next Stiles. And that's you, of course. Stiles," she said, grabbing him by the shoulders, "You're in serious danger."


	3. Chapter 3

AN- All characters belong to MTV and the wonderful creators of Teen Wolf. Also- Reviews are much appreciated :)

* * *

Stiles shifted his old Jeep into park next to the curb in front of Lydia's house. The lights in her house were all off, making it blend it in with the blackness of the cloudy night and exacerbate the sense of dread they were both feeling. He turn to look at her as she sat motionless in the passenger seat next to him.

"Lydia," Stiles said softly, placing his hand on top of hers where it rested on the center console. She kept staring straight ahead, and noticed the tear stains on her cheeks.

"Lydia, it's going to be okay-"

"How? How is it going to be okay, Stiles?!" she demanded, staring at him expectantly. He opened his mouth to answer her and she began to speak again, cutting him off.

"I'll tell you. It's not going to be okay. It's just, it's just...not," she mumbled.

"We always make it out alright," Stiles tried reason, but he knew he only sounded half convincing.

"Stiles, I just told you about a premonition centered on you being the Dread Doctors' next target for scientific experimentation! Are you not understanding that? How are you so calm right now?"

Stiles wondered why he wasn't losing it, how he was so calm. He didn't understand it anymore than Lydia did. He should be freaking out, crying, screaming, or doing something similarly dramatic. But, he somehow felt… relieved? Stiles felt okay with the fact that it was him, not someone else. He would have been devastated if he had found out that the Doctors were coming for Malia, Scott, or Lydia. It's been him before though. The Nogitsune had taken over him, and he had come out of it. If the Doctors where coming for him, he at least had some experience with this, and he could try and figure it. _You're always the one who figures it out_ , she had said.

"I don't know," he answered her truthfully. "But, I do know that this isn't over. The Lydia I know is not one to throw in the towel."

She finally tore her eyes from the blank space in front of her and turned to looked at him. She gave Stiles a small smile, which he returned. Lydia sighed.

"Why did it have to be you that found me?" she mused, leaning her head back against the seat of Jeep.

"Hey," Stiles shifted in the driver's seat so that he could face her straight on, "I will always find you, okay?"

Lydia nodded. "Okay," she whispered.

"So, what else can you tell me about this premonition?" he asked, and Lydia shuddered visibly at the memory.

"It was horrible, Stiles. I don't remember going to the library, but once I got there I started to feel like someone was following me. I turned around and I saw Tracy, crawling on the floor behind me, covered in dirt and blood," she took a breath to steady herself.

"Then what?" Stiles asked gently.

"I ran deeper in the library to get away, and I hid in one of the aisles. Suddenly, all the books on one of the shelves came flying off, like the whole row had been pushed through from the other side. And then I saw Donovan's face through the opening, he smiled at me and his mouth was dripping blood. I screamed. Then dozens of figures closed in on me. I looked at them more closely and I realized that they were all failed chimeras. I heard some sort of mechanical breathing sound, and I knew they were coming. But, the Doctors never appeared to me. I just heard one of their voices inside my head as their experiments began to get closer, some were even touching me. The voice said, "He who finds you will be our final subject," and then I screamed," she finished.

Stiles stared at her, speechless. Lydia's eyes were beginning to well up with fresh, unshed tears again.

"Oh, Lydia," he sighed, and he reached for her across the console, pulling her into a hug. He felt her body relax slightly as she buried her face into his chest. Stiles smoothed her hair gently, taking as much comfort in their embrace as she was. He ignored the nagging voice in the back of his mind that he shouldn't be doing this; it wasn't part of the plan. But in this moment they needed each other. Lydia was closer to him than almost anyone, and right now neither of them could just turn down the desperate ache to be comforted by someone who understood.

"Stiles?" she asked in a whisper.

"Yeah?" he murmured.

"I wish it was me," she said, barely audibly. Stiles flinched, and pulled back from their embrace to look at her.

"Don't wish that. Please, Lydia. I don't wish that. I don't wish it was anyone else...especially you."

"Stiles...no, that's not.." she trailed off, and her eyes widened as if she was unsure of why she had spoken. Lydia suddenly opened the door to the Jeep and hopped out.

"Nevermind, that's not what I meant," she said quickly. It was one of the few times Stiles had ever seen Lydia flustered. She always knew exactly what she wanted to say and how she thought best to act.

Stiles's eyebrows knitted together in concern. "Are you sure you're alright? Do you want me to walk you in?" he asked.

"I'm sure. Thanks. Be careful getting home, okay?"

"Okay," he replied.

"Goodnight, Stiles," Lydia said, turning to move quickly to the front door.

Stiles waited until she got the door open, and he held up a hand in goodbye. She gave a small wave in return and shut the door behind her.

* * *

Stiles drove home in a confused kind of daze. Pulling into the driveway, he parked the car and turned the key to turn it off, pulling it out of the ignition. Stiles just sat in the car for a minute, numb to the events of the night. Taking a deep breath, he finally got out of the car and made his way to the front door. He quietly crept up the stairs and shut the door to his room quietly. Changing quickly he got into bed next to the already sleeping figure curled up under the blankets. He was motionless, resting at the other side of the mattress. His eyes were glued to the ceiling in thought, with the same words bouncing around in his head. _I wish it were me_ , she told him. Looking at Malia next to him, it dawned on him what she might have meant.


End file.
